


Sunshine on Leith

by eyra



Series: Freedom & Whisky [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Aristocrat Sirius, Bottom Remus Lupin, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Modern Era, Romance, Rough Oral Sex, Scotland, Sick Remus Lupin, Slash, Top Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:21:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23859727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyra/pseuds/eyra
Summary: Remus hasn’t quite managed to work out why James’s family have a house in Edinburgh, beyond them seeming to have a house just about everywhere, and this is apparently one the family seldom use so it had been easy enough for James to tell them he and Sirius were heading up for a few days without the need for much secrecy. The need for any secrecy at all does still niggle slightly at the back of Remus’s mind, though; how nice it would be to be open about all this, and to think that even just one person in Sirius’s world would be accepting of him.The boys head up to Edinburgh for three days of freedom, whisky, and bagpipes.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Freedom & Whisky [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719376
Comments: 88
Kudos: 335





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Very nearly works as a stand-alone but will make infinitely more sense if you've read Statten Park first.
> 
> Title, of course, by The Proclaimers.

There’s a deer picking its way over the manicured lawn, just across the lake from him. He watches it edge nearer to the shore, until the sun reflected from the gently ebbing waters dances on its coat, the light picking out crystals of dewdrops that cling to its hide and to the velvet of its new antlers. A bird flits this way and that above the buck - a lark, he thinks - before settling on the branch of a beech tree with its roots buried deep in the bank. He watches it raise its wing, pruning its tawny feathers, and then it hops down to a lower branch, opens its bill, and emits the loudest, most godawful ringing sound. 

Remus groans as he's pulled forcibly from his deep sleep, frowning as he fumbles blindly for his phone on his bedside table. The daylight streaming through his window is altogether too bright for so early in the morning, and he squints to answer the call.

"What?"

"Morning, sunshine."

Remus's heart leaps.

"Sirius?"

"Yes, darling," comes Sirius's cheery voice down the line, and it's the first time Remus has heard it since Statten at the start of the month. "T'is I."

They've texted, of course - almost non-stop, after a few days, but Sirius's Paris excursion apparently involved sharing a "flat" (which Remus knows, without even seeing it, was more like a palatial penthouse apartment, with staff) with some of his father's contemporaries and absolutely no time to himself, which meant phone calls were out of the question, something Remus considered a great shame by the third night of Sirius's trip when Sirius had sent him a message listing, in graphic detail, everything he was going to do to him next time they had a bed and a couple of hours to pass. He'd resorted to putting his phone down and quickly getting himself off alone in his room, and Sirius had whined for days afterwards that Remus should've filmed himself doing it and sent it to him, and how selfish of Remus to not think of that.

"H-how are you?" Remus stutters, sitting up in his bed and rubbing his eyes against the light. "Are you back?"

"I'm back," says Sirius brightly. "And I'm very much looking forward to seeing you tonight."

Remus grins to himself. He hadn’t so much as taken his shoes off when he got back to his flat after the weekend out at the estate before he was ringing Minerva and asking to be added to the roster for the Somerset House event. It's a Wednesday, which is usually Remus's night off, but he's been with the company so long now that Minerva is always glad to have him on board, particularly for an event as prestigious as this, and if Remus kept a calendar he would've marked the date with a big red 'x' as soon as he got off the phone.

"Me too."

They chat for a few minutes, Remus unable to wipe the silly grin from his face as he snuggles down into his sheets and lets Sirius's voice wash over him, waking something in Remus that yearns to be able to reach out and touch him again. It's a physical _ache_ at this point, and a masochistic part of Remus is already thinking about the end of tonight's event when the question of when they'll next be able to do this will once again present itself.

Sirius rings off with a soft " _See you soon,_ " and Remus languishes in bed for another half hour, first attempting to read his book for a while and then, mortifyingly, succumbing instead to clutching his phone in his hand and letting his mind wander through pleasant fictions of things that can never, ever happen. He drags himself up around ten to clamber into the shower, and then sets to ironing his shirt and trousers before heading out into the hot, hazy city.

It's an early set up, Remus and Pete and the fifty or so other servers all meeting presently at the service entrance to the venue just after noon, and then it's three hours or so of prep work, table setting and, on Remus's part, trying not to jump every time someone in a tux strides across the courtyard; he knows that Sirius would never do something so déclassé as arrive at a party early. The event space itself is magnificent; a great stone piazza in the shadow of the towering Neoclassical mansion, its colonnades positively gleaming in the late August sun. They've set up close to sixty tables in a horseshoe shape around the square, with a small stage at the north end of the quadrangle on which a string quartet are currently tuning up. The fountains in the centre of the piazza bubble away happily, and Remus is reminded of Sirius climbing into the fountain on that scorching afternoon at Statten Park. _God_ , he aches for that weekend.

He has little time to dwell, though, because soon the guests are arriving in their droves and Remus is ferrying tray after tray of champagne flutes from the basement kitchens up the wide stone stairs and out into the square, and he's soon lost in a sea of Duchesses and bankers and all manner of bejewelled revellers. Rich music echoes off the mansion from the quartet on-stage, a classical piece Remus couldn't hope to place, and he's just beginning to feel antsy when there's a careful hand on one hip and a low, familiar voice in his ear.

"Any chance of a drink, darling?"

He starts, and has to think fast to save the still half-full tray of glasses he's carrying. Sirius looks resplendent in his black suit, and Remus notes with delight that the tip of his nose is ever so slightly red after a fortnight in the Paris sun. It's all he can do not to kiss it.

Instead, he offers the tray to Sirius with a barely contained grin, and feels a rush of something through his veins at the knowledge that they're here, having this encounter of theirs in the open, and _no one knows_. No one knows that they know each other. No one knows that Remus has been counting down the days until he saw Sirius again. No one knows that not three weeks ago, Sirius was pushing Remus's face down into the mattress of an antique four-poster at Statten Park and taking him roughly from behind.

" _It's good to see you,_ " Sirius mouths silently, and Remus might melt. Sirius leans in closer then, under the guise of taking a flute from Remus's tray, and murmurs softly to him:

"I'll come find you, later."

And then he's gone, and Remus is torn between running after him and kissing him, and sitting down on the stone floor to catch his breath, guests be damned, as the promise of " _later_ " does something funny to the joints in his knees and the collar of his white pressed shirt is suddenly far, far too tight.

Sirius, apparently, can't wait for later, because barely twenty minutes have passed before Remus is being accosted on his way back to the kitchens and dragged around a corner beneath a great sweeping oak staircase that leads to the upper floors. There are serving staff walking this way and that not ten feet from where Sirius presses him against the wall, hidden behind a marble statue of Lord Somebody or other, but that doesn't stop Sirius from eagerly pushing his tongue between Remus's lips before Remus has even registered what's happened. He moans softly, spreading his legs a little to let Sirius slip a searching hand between his thighs, and then the past few seconds catch up with him and he grabs Sirius's wrist to still him.

"Not here, you idiot," he whispers incredulously, already breathless as Sirius continues to paw indelicately at Remus's trousers, and before things have a chance to go really disastrously wrong he takes Sirius by the hand and tugs him away from the kitchens, out of the service entrance and across the short walkway under the low-hanging sycamore trees to the row of self-contained portable bathrooms on the other side of the main building, tucked away in a back courtyard; God forbid the serving staff should set foot inside the venue itself and sully the proper bathrooms for the VIPs. 

“A toilet, Remus?” drawls Sirius in amusement as Remus pulls open the door and yanks him inside before anyone sees. “Really?”

“Shut up.”

Remus is grinning, using every bit of the extra inch in height that he has on Sirius to crowd him against the wall of the small room, his hands already working at the buttons of Sirius’s stuffy collared shirt, tugging the fabric down and mouthing hotly at the tanned skin of his neck. There’s a hand on his belt, and he sighs as Sirius cleverly pops the button on his trousers and slips his fingers inside, cupping Remus firmly through his underwear. 

“I see you’ve missed me, darling,” he murmurs, massaging Remus’s already hard length through the material. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Remus laughs, and then Sirius is flipping them, shoving Remus firmly back against the door and bringing a possessive hand up to grasp firmly at his hair. Remus gulps, his throat exposed as Sirius pulls his head back and it _hurts_ and it’s so good and God, he has missed him. 

It's a rushed and messy thing, Remus keenly aware throughout that someone could come looking for him and he has no faith whatsoever in the flimsy lock on the bathroom door. The thrill of that only seems to spur them on, though, and soon Sirius is spitting inelegantly into his palm and reaching down between them to set a punishing rhythm for Remus; he's at the edge in minutes, and it’s only at the last second that he remembers he doesn’t have another uniform with him and Minerva will go spare if he turns up back in the kitchen with suspicious substances on his black trousers. 

“Careful, careful,” he gasps, looking down between them and Sirius gets it straightaway, because he chuckles breathlessly and relinquishes his grip on Remus’s curls to sink to the floor and take Remus between his full lips, and Remus has to grip the counter to stay upright as he spills down Sirius's throat. His legs turn to jelly after that, not helped when Sirius stands to kiss him deeply and he tastes himself on his tongue, and a moment later he's eagerly falling to his knees and breathing through his nose as he slowly takes the whole length of Sirius into his mouth. There's a soft groan from above him, and then - by some innate instinct that Remus is only just getting to know - he reaches up to take Sirius’s hand and guides it to meet the one already grasping Remus’s curls. He looks up at Sirius from his position on the floor, holding himself completely still, and waits. 

Sirius gets it. Of course he gets it; Remus is coming to realise that somehow, by some wonderful, dark magic, the two of them appear to have unknowingly cultivated some sort of unspoken language that only they understand and they don’t need anything else, in this moment, because Sirius _gets it_. He starts slowly, both hands fisting in Remus’s hair as he holds him still and draws his hips back, carefully pushing all the way back in and watching the minute expressions that flicker across Remus’s face. 

“Alright?” he whispers shakily, carefully guiding himself back until his head rests on Remus’s tongue, and then slowly back in until Remus tastes him at the back of his throat. He moans around him, bringing his hands up to grasp at the backs of Sirius’s thighs, urging him on. That’s all it takes. Sirius groans hungrily, his fingers tightening their grasp as he sets a new pace, and soon he’s driving into Remus’s mouth in earnest and it’s _bliss_ , pure bliss for Remus; partly because it’s Sirius, and partly because it speaks directly to that weird, mythical creature deep inside him that demands this sort of thing from time to time. 

He gags around Sirius’s length, and delights in the spit he can already feel running past his lips and down his chin. There’s something equally appealing in the realisation that he’s still exposed himself, his soft length still wet from Sirius’s mouth, hanging spent between his legs as Sirius hammers into him. _God_ , he’s perverse. He actually chokes at one point and for a horrific moment thinks he might throw up, but then he’s swallowing and shaking his head and taking Sirius back between his lips, urging him to carry on, his eyes streaming from the onslaught. And just when it’s all getting too much, too intense for him, he feels the muscles in Sirius’s lower stomach tighten, and then he's pulling out and tugging Remus’s head back with one hand, the other stroking himself quickly until Remus feels him spill into his open, waiting mouth, painting his tongue and his lips and his chin in that wondrous way of his, and Remus truly doesn’t think that such a ritual could ever get old for them. It’s miraculous. 

He’s vaguely aware of Sirius stooping to kiss him gently, then there’s a running tap and a warm, wet paper towel brushing carefully over his chin, wiping away the mess. He feels Sirius’s fingers run gently under his eyes, the skin there tight with salt, and then another kiss, and a soothing hand on his aching scalp. 

“Jesus Christ, Remus.”

It’s a whisper; a benediction against his swollen lips, and when he opens his eyes he finds Sirius staring across at him in awe. 

“Wow,” he murmurs... and immediately winces. His throat feels like it’s on fire. He swallows experimentally, which makes the pain considerably worse, but really, he doesn’t know what he expected. 

“Are you alright?” Sirius looks worried. Bless his heart. 

“I’m fine,” Remus practically croaks, swallowing again, hard, and leaning in to give Sirius a soft, reassuring kiss. “Just might have to be quiet for the rest of the day.”

It really does ache, though; a rawness down the back of his throat and a dull throb pulsing through his jaw, and Sirius still looks beside himself with worry as Remus stands and leans over to take a few tentative sips of water straight from the faucet in the sink. Sirius fusses over him for a bit then, fastening his belt for him and attempting to comb his hair into something respectable with his fingers and checking for the eighteenth time that’s he’s alright. 

“I’m _fine_ , Sirius,” Remus smiles once they’re both all straightened up. “That was exactly what I wanted.”

Sirius nods hesitantly, and it’s so strange for Remus to see him so unsure. 

“Please don’t make me feel weird about it,” he sighs. 

“Gosh, no, Remus...” Sirius shakes his head, looking slightly lost. “That was... biblical. Truly.”

Remus chuckles. That hurts, too. 

“I just need to know that you’re alright. And I mean physically, as well as... you know. The rest.”

“I,” Remus mutters, peppering soft kisses on Sirius’s cheeks. “Am. Fine. That was fantastic.”

He steps back, shaking his head at the wonder that is Sirius Black, then regretfully glances at his watch. 

“But we need to go. Service starts in five minutes and Minerva will already be looking for my head on a pike for missing prep.”

They part with a daring kiss at the corner of the back courtyard and a promise to speak later, Remus making a final adjustment to Sirius's tie before slipping back into the kitchens and busying himself with helping plate up trays of cured haddock with caperberries as if he's always been there. He still feels a little unstable on his feet, and after a quick glance in the mirror on his way out to the main square he channels all his focus into staying upright, not dropping anything, and avoiding the innate instinct to repeatedly scan the crowd to try to catch a glimpse of Sirius. He does spot him once, at a table up by the stage, talking with his father and another man who Remus recognises as Sirius's younger brother. James appears later, too, and throws Remus an exaggerated wink from across the dancefloor. Remus rolls his eyes and grins.

The party's in full swing by the time Remus gets a moment's downtime, and he takes the opportunity to head back to the kitchens and pour himself a glass of cold water, which he gulps down hurriedly, wincing as it does absolutely nothing to soothe the burning in his throat.

"What's up with you?"

It's Pete, frowning at Remus from where he's standing down by the pot wash at the other end of the counter.

"Nothing," says Remus, his voice betraying him as it cracks painfully, and Pete narrows his eyes. A long moment passes, and then:

"Oh for _God's_ sake, Remus."

Remus laughs as Pete throws down his towel and stomps out of the room, muttering something about him and Sirius being _bloody perverts_ , which only makes Remus laugh harder. He knows it's said with love, or if not love then at least a begrudging sort of acceptance of the whole situation; he's not spoken to him about it, but Remus knows that Pete's been texting James on and off this past month about the football scores, a fact he secretly finds adorable, and Remus kind of loves the idea of the four of them being something akin to genuine friends at this point.

He heads back out into the venue with another tray of champagne flutes, passing them round to the various dignitaries and celebrities and someone Remus thinks might be the Queen's cousin and then there's Sirius, appearing out of nowhere and striding confidently towards him. Remus frowns at him as he approaches; they said they’d speak later, but surely not _here_? He's in front of him now, and he's taking a glass of champagne with a quiet " _Thank you_ " and then he's gone, and Remus doesn't even register what's happened until a few minutes after when he notices the bulge that's appeared in the pocket of his apron.

Setting the tray of drinks down on an empty table, he reaches into the pocket and it takes him a good moment to realise what he's looking at. It's a packet of ibuprofen, and he blinks down at it before looking up into the crowd in the direction that Sirius disappeared. He spots him across the floor, and when Sirius sees him looking he points to the pack of tablets in Remus's hands and then gestures to his own throat earnestly. And then he's gone again, swept away by a throng of party-goers, and Remus feels something weird happening in his chest that he tries not to think about.

The pills do help, although a strange part of Remus finds that he almost laments the pain in his throat subsiding to a numb nothingness. He was rather enjoying the images that came to mind every time he swallowed, and felt that aching burn that he asked Sirius to put there. He's got some fine bruises blooming on both his knees though, so he'll settle for that, for now.

The party begins to wind down sometime around ten, and Remus forces himself not to worry that he hasn't seen Sirius for the past few hours. He'll be doing his rounds, he reasons, talking to all the right people and saying all the right things to impress the masses and, Remus assumes, his father most of all. Sirius hadn't said much about his business in Paris, but from the late-night texts bemoaning the fact that he even had to be there Remus suspects that Orion Black's chosen path for his son is still of absolutely no interest to Sirius. He aches a little for him, then; Remus might not be exactly setting the world on fire, but at least he's choosing to do what he's doing. For better or worse.

He's pulled from his musings by Minerva snapping at him to help clear away the last of the coffees, and he loses the next hour to dodging drunk revellers and ferrying trays of cups back and forth and then Sirius is there, _finally_ , taking him by the elbow and pulling him off to one side.

"I have to go," he says hurriedly, and Remus's stomach does something unpleasant. "I'm so sorry."

"Oh. No, that's fine. Of course, you should go."

He tries desperately not to think that this might be goodbye until next summer; there are no more events on the Black family schedule that McGonagall's has ever been booked for, and Remus asking to be added onto the roster for tonight is one thing but he thinks requesting that one of the oldest families in England rearrange their catering plans for their entire social calendar so that he, specifically, can serve them canapés might raise a few questions. But next July is so, _so_ far away, and the thought of not doing this again for a whole eleven months is devastating. He offers Sirius a small smile, anyway, but it mustn't be very convincing because Sirius is shaking his head and taking Remus by the arm and pulling him quickly round the corner of the stone stairs, just out of sight of the rest of the piazza.

"When can I see you again?"

Remus blinks at him. That's not quite what he expected.

"Whenever you want," he says without thinking, because it's the most obvious thing in the world, and Sirius has to know that. Remus is his, anytime. That much, at least, must be clear by now.

They stare at each other in silence for a moment, and something shifts between them; something important, Remus thinks, because here they are, both freely admitting that this probably isn't just about the clandestine hook-ups at family events and the messy, rough blowjobs that leave Remus's scalp aching for days. It's probably a bit more than that, really. It's probably a real thing, like Sirius said that last night at Statten.

Sirius is grinning now, eyes crinkling as he leans in to kiss Remus softly.

"Alright," he murmurs, still smiling as he pushes their foreheads together briefly, and Remus doesn't know what to say, so he just smiles back. "So I'll ring you," Sirius continues, looking slightly pained as he forces himself to pull away. "And we'll... do something. We'll go somewhere. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Remus nods, and he's grinning too, and then Sirius is pressing one last chaste kiss to his lips before disappearing off round the corner, across the piazza to the idling row of chauffeured cars on the busy street outside.

***

It's barely twenty-four hours before Sirius is calling him to tell him that the four of them are driving up to James's house in Edinburgh next month, and ordering that Remus books the time off work now, and then Remus really does go out and buy a calendar just so he can mark September the eighteenth with a big, red 'x'. He smiles dopily at it for a moment before he forces himself to put it away and go do something else, lest he completely lose it and draw a bloody great heart around the date, too.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of August goes by in a haze of City events and late-night phone calls with Sirius, lewd and playful to begin with, then increasingly, as they head into an early autumn, something that feels altogether bigger. There’s still no shortage of evenings that find Remus rutting wantonly against his sheets as Sirius utters soft commands in his ear but it’s just that more and more, they tend to stay on the line long after they’ve both come, chatting about this and that and Remus’s work and Sirius’s own hectic calendar that seems almost entirely dictated by what his father wants him to do in any given week. He’s in New York the Saturday after Somerset House, and then up to Yorkshire to oversee the signing of some legal papers relating to a one-hundred-acre plot of family land just outside Thirsk. He does have two nights in London at the end of the month, and the pair of them share forty-eight blissful hours in which Remus takes up a clandestine temporary residence in Sirius's Chelsea apartment - which is a _palace_ , Remus notes - or, more specifically, Sirius's bed. Neither one of them gets fully dressed at all that weekend, with the exception of a few hours in the afternoon on the second day when Remus says he wants to try something, ending in him completely naked in the dining room, bent over the table and getting his arse thoroughly spanked by Sirius in a three-piece suit. He comes spectacularly across the glass tabletop, and the memory of Sirius grasping him by the hair and holding his face over the mess until he cleans it with his tongue keeps Remus going, and then some, for the next few weeks as he crosses off the dates on his calendar until Edinburgh.

It’s just gone six when Remus sees James's car coming up Cannon Street on the morning of the eighteenth, the great black Range Rover running tracks through the sea of orange sycamore leaves coating the tarmac. He waves to him as if flagging down a taxi, and shoves his battered suitcase into the boot when it pops open seemingly of its own accord. He's barely even shut the passenger door when Sirius is leaning across the back seat and kissing him firmly, grinning when Pete grumbles something from the front of the car about it being far too early for that sort of thing.

"We could've just come to your apartment, you madman," James says, craning his neck to give Remus a smile.

"It's not far from here," Remus says, accepting the takeaway cup of coffee that James passes to him with a grateful nod. "I don't mind the walk."

Peter narrows his eyes, but says nothing. He knows they're at least thirty minutes from Remus's flat, but Remus still has this _thing_ about Sirius and James coming to where he lives. It's not that he's proud, as such; he knows his building is a total dive but he also knows that it's the best he can afford on his salary, and Sirius must have _some_ concept of what his family pays McGonagall's for their events so he knows Remus isn't likely to have a penthouse overlooking the river. It's more that Remus wants, for whatever reason, to maintain some sort of boundary between this new part of his life and the decidedly greyer, dingier other part of his life. It's alright for Pete; his cousin landed him a house share in Balham at an absolute steal a few years ago, so he pays around the same as Remus but gets a double room with bay windows and an en-suite on a leafy residential street for his money, versus Remus's dusty attic bedroom with no double-glazing and, consequently, a constant hum of traffic and ever-growing patches of black mould on the ceiling that Remus scrubs with bleach and paints over every summer. 

They stop for breakfast somewhere just north of Loughborough, and James insists on paying for everything which irks Remus a little, but he doesn't say anything; it's obviously pocket change for James, and it's not as if Remus is contributing anything towards travel or lodgings for this weekend so it seems silly to get precious over a plate of eggs and bacon. He does, however, make a bit of a point of buying his own lunch when they stop at a services just outside Durham, and dutifully chews through a disgusting prawn sandwich from the reduced section in Boots whilst Sirius, James, and Peter - the traitor - enjoy their fresh pastries and fancy coffees from Pret.

The rest of the drive is taken over by an extraordinarily competitive, drawn out game of I Spy, which Sirius ends up winning on a technicality even though Peter remains insistent that Remus’s pick of “gyrocopter” was invalid since he personally didn’t actually see it when it flew overhead. He’s overruled by James, and Sirius laughs victoriously around a mouthful of Jelly Beans as he ruffles an irritated Peter’s hair condescendingly through the gap between the headrest and the front seat, and then they’re slowing to a crawl as they begin winding their way round the narrow streets of the capital. Remus hasn’t quite managed to work out _why_ James’s family have a house in Edinburgh, beyond them seeming to have a house just about everywhere, and this is apparently one the family seldom use so it had been easy enough for James to tell them he and Sirius were heading up for a few days without the need for much secrecy. The need for any secrecy at all does still niggle slightly at the back of Remus’s mind, though; how nice it would be to be open about all this, and to think that even just one person in Sirius’s world would be accepting of him. Remus still has no idea how this thing between them could ever work long term, but, he reasons, when Sirius casually takes his hand on the back seat and gives his fingers a squeeze, that shouldn't be a worry for today; he'll deal with that later. 

Remus had half been expecting a Statten Park in miniature, a vast lawned estate tucked away down a winding street with fountains and deer and endless, rolling grounds, but when James finally pulls over on a quiet road in the heart of New Town, it’s outside a great Georgian manor house instead, four storeys of sandstone and towering, arched windows, wrought iron railings gleaming in the autumn sunlight as the four of them spill out of the car onto the cobbles. Wide, stone steps lead up to an imposing black-lacquered door with a huge, brass knocker and a doorknob big as a saucer, and when James ushers them inside Remus sees that even the stately facade belied the sheer scale of this place. They enter into a vast, cavernous hallway, all dark wood floors and soft yellow walls, bright white architraves surrounding innumerable grand doorways that lead through to even more expansive rooms. Antiques and curios line the walls and adorn every surface; marble busts, porcelain vases, a towering grandfather clock with a soothing, steady tick on each swing of its pendulum. They hang their jackets on an ornate baroque coat rack at the foot of a sweeping oak staircase, and then James is leading them down a long corridor towards a large, homely kitchen at the back of the house. 

Remus takes a seat next to Sirius at the farmhouse-style table, and notices, vaguely, that his stomach feels a little strange as James fills the kettle and makes a round of tea for them all with the milk they picked up at the last service station. It doesn’t hurt - it’s just a bit unsettled, like butterflies, or that feeling you get before going down the big drop on a rollercoaster. He puts it down to excitement, or anticipation or something; perhaps he’s thinking back to Statten and wondering if the bed they share here will have another richly embroidered counterpane for Sirius to push Remus’s face down into again. 

He sips at his tea slowly, watching Sirius search through a tall cupboard for some biscuits. He’s clearly completely at home here, more so even than he seemed at his own estate, as he tries another cabinet and finally digs out a pack of chocolate McVitie’s, cheering triumphantly. It’s nice, Remus muses, to see him so comfortable, and he grins at him over his mug when he catches his eye. 

“I knew we’d left a packet here last time,” Sirius says, depositing the biscuits onto the plate. “Might be a touch soggy, but they’ll do.”

Remus nibbles at the edge of a Digestive as Sirius leads the two of them upstairs a few minutes later, down a corridor on the second floor to a bright, sunlit room overlooking a neatly-kept garden to the rear of the townhouse. The walls are painted in the same soft yellow as the hallway downstairs. There’s a queen-size bed near the tall, Georgian windows, with plush white feather pillows and a huge tartan blanket, and an old iron fireplace on the far wall over which hangs a beautiful oil painting of a stag, picked out in russets and tans against a backdrop of the sweeping highlands. 

“Is this satisfactory for Sir?” Sirius asks, airily waving Remus further into the room with a smile. 

Remus grins. “No, I hate it.”

He plonks his beaten-up old case near the foot of the bed next to Sirius’s pristine Balenciaga weekend bag. It’s a good metaphor, Remus thinks; Sirius in his chinos and smart white shirt and nonchalant elegance, and Remus with his freckles and his worn-out hoodie and his hands scrubbed raw from operating the pot wash at the Law Society autumn formal last weekend. It doesn’t bother him, though. If anything, he thinks their differences border on complimentary, and he’s not yet got any sense from Sirius that Remus’s technically inferior social status is a problem for him personally. It’s been such a pleasant and surprising revelation for Remus to learn over the past couple of months that James and Sirius actually don’t seem to give much of a shit about that sort of thing, and all the pranks and japes that Remus has been party to over the years weren’t necessarily a result of arrogance or exceptionalism; they’re just idiots. Insanely privileged idiots, of course, and Remus is fairly certain neither of them quite understands just _how_ privileged, but there's no malice in it, really.

They soon forego unpacking in favour of pawing at each other through their clothes eagerly, seven hours sitting beside one another yet being unable to touch each other in the back of the car apparently too much for either of their restraints to suffer through without the need for urgent and immediate recompense as soon as the door to their bedroom is shut. Somehow, Remus ends up on all fours on the floor of the en-suite, the ridges of the marble tiles biting into his knees to which he pays absolutely no mind as he revels in the feeling of Sirius pushing slowly into him from behind. It’s not their most graceful outing; Sirius bangs his elbow on the side of the clawfoot bath at one point and stops for a whole minute to whinge about it, and then they can’t locate any towels to clean up afterwards which ends in Sirius having to creep down the hallway to an airing cupboard at the top of the steps and hope that James and Pete are still occupied downstairs. They collapse on the bed after a hurried, shared shower, Remus laughing at the thought that the others could’ve come up at any moment to find a mostly-naked, very sticky Sirius skulking around in the corridor, hair in obviously post-coital disarray. 

“You’re so mean to me,” Sirius says, jabbing Remus in the ribs, which only makes Remus laugh harder. 

Remus grins at him. “You love it, though.”

Sirius shakes his head and leans over to kiss him sweetly on the lips, and it’s just bloody perfect. 

They all head out a short while later, figuring they still have enough daylight left to tick off the castle this afternoon. It feels colder than it should for the middle of September, and Sirius takes his own scarf off and wraps it wordlessly around Remus’s neck when he notices him shivering. It’s a soft cashmere, and it smells like Sirius when Remus buries himself into it against the biting wind. 

James must have spent a lot of time in the city, Remus realises, since he seems to know every street and every ginnel like the back of his hand. He leads them down to a long, narrow park with a bright turquoise fountain at its centre, then back up a steep stone staircase, the rest of them panting by the time they emerge onto a cobbled side street at the top. Remus can tell they’re in tourist country now by the sheer amount of tartan lining every shop window, and there’s a bagpiper on the corner as they turn up the Royal Mile, which delights Peter so much that he makes them all stand and listen for ten minutes. Remus feels Sirius slip an arm through his and rest his head on his shoulder as the piper launches into a rousing new piece; he’s never thought bagpipes a particularly romantic instrument, but Christ if this moment right here isn’t making him an instant convert. His heart pulls achingly on each key change, and he’s not sure if it’s Sirius or the piper or everything all at once, but by the time it’s over and they’re tossing pound coins into the piper’s case Remus is ready to either propose marriage to Sirius or fight the redcoats. He isn’t sure which. 

They stop in a busy pub halfway up the castle approach and James insists on getting in a round of whiskies, which Sirius groans at. 

“He always does this,” he says as James fights his way across the crowded floor towards the bar. “And I say James, I’d really rather just have a gin and tonic. But does he listen?”

Remus grins. “Maybe he’s just trying to assimilate.”

“Oh, assimilation complete; he was born here. He grew up in the house we’re staying in.”

“Seriously?” says Remus, frowning. “He doesn’t sound Scottish.”

“Yes, well,” Sirius murmurs, shifting in his seat and fiddling with a beer mat. “Elocution lessons will do that to a man.”

James returns shortly after with their drinks, so Remus can’t press the matter and find out why in God’s name anyone’s parents would force them to take elocution lessons post-1800. He suspects that Sirius suffered a similar fate in his own childhood, and that’s an area Remus is never overly confident about venturing into; Sirius tends to clam up, and become smaller, somehow, and Remus hasn’t quite worked out how to bring him back from that yet. 

“Right, Remus, old boy,” James says, folding himself onto the stool across from Remus. “This one is for you. I think you’ll like it; it’s an Islay, so it’s rather complex.”

“Like you,” Sirius grins, nudging Remus with his shoulder. Remus quirks an eyebrow at him; he’s always thought himself quite straightforward.

James frowns at Sirius. “Quiet in the classroom please.” He smiles back at Remus, and goes on:

“You’ll notice, on the first sip, that it’s _peaty_ , Remus. It tastes, unmistakably, of peat.”

Remus knows what’s coming, and he looks to Sirius again to see him pulling a face and glancing over at Peter, who clearly hasn’t foreseen the joke. 

“Is there something you boys need to tell us?” Sirius says distastefully, and Remus elbows him in the ribs and gestures for James to carry on. 

“Most philistines, like our Sirius here,” James continues, smiling sweetly, “are incapable of appreciating such a layered, distinctive flavour. But to those who persevere, this whisky will offer the drinker something truly special. What’s that?” he murmurs, raising Remus’s glass and taking a delicate sniff. “Florals? Honey? _Seaweed?_ The musky scent of a strapping young kilted Scotsman chopping wood outside a ramshackle bothy on the wild, misty moors? It’s a _journey_ , Remus, and I’m quite sure you’re the only man here with enough gall about him to take it.”

He pushes the glass towards Remus with a flourish, and Remus grins whilst Sirius offers a congenial round of applause to James’s act. 

“Your usual, my dear,” James says as he hands Sirius a glass slightly lighter in tone to the amber liquid Remus is holding, and an even lighter dram still goes to Peter, who takes it and looks at James with an expectant grin on his face. 

“What about mine?” he asks eagerly, sniffing at the glass.

“I don’t know Pete, it’s apple juice; you’re an idiot and anything I chose would be entirely wasted on you.”

Sirius explodes in laughter, slapping his hand on the table as Peter stares James down and tells him he’s a prick, and then James is taking Pete off to the bar to pick out a proper drink for him and Remus is raising his own glass, swirling the whisky round and watching the fine layer that coats the inside of the tumbler as the drink settles. He raises it to his lips, taking a small sip, and the alcohol burns just about everywhere as he swallows it down. 

“Crikey,” he laughs, looking at Sirius with wide eyes. 

Sirius smiles, licking his bottom lip as he watches him. “Keep going,” he says, nodding to the glass. “You’ll find it.”

He takes another sip, and another, and James wasn’t lying; it _does_ taste like peat, and there’s smoke, too, and if Remus closed his eyes he fancies he might be standing on the shores of the island out west, the landscape rising rugged and wind-beaten behind him as he looks out across steely waters. And then he takes a fourth sip, and there’s the honey, and something lighter that reminds him of a meadow; a wildflower tucked behind his ear. 

“Good?” Sirius says softly, still watching him intently. 

He nods, and looks to Sirius, and honestly if all that remained in the world were the two of them and this glass of whisky, Remus would be entirely at peace. 

“Good.”

James and Pete return from the bar just as Sirius is explaining to Remus the flavours of his own dram, and upon hearing what’s going on James quickly shushes him and insists to Remus that Sirius doesn’t know what he’s talking about, before launching into an equally as entertaining tour of the Highland whisky Sirius is drinking. Pete’s selection, after the apple juice, turns out to be a very light twelve-year old Speyside with a splash of water, because James apparently didn’t trust him not to down it and get sloshed on the one glass and throw up over the castle ramparts. Remus thinks it was probably a sensible decision; Pete’s always been something of a lightweight. 

They head back out onto the cobbles a short while later, and Remus feels something stir inside him as they round the castle approach and the old fortress looms into view, its battlements dominating the dark autumn skyline. There’s a wide, open walk sloping up towards an imposing gatehouse, flanked by low stone walls with a sheer drop on either side, and Remus distantly recalls something from his Year Eleven history lessons about defensive architecture and fortifications. He feels it here, even amongst the bustling crowd on the esplanade: you’d have to be mad to approach the keep without good reason. 

“Magnificent, isn’t she?” James grins when he catches Remus gawping. “Did you know, the castle actually sits atop a dormant volcano-”

“Yes, thank you Professor Potter,” Sirius cuts him off, slinging an arm around Remus’s shoulders. “Shall we leave that for the tour guides?”

James tuts good naturedly, wandering off to where Peter is studying some sort of plaque on a stone monument. Remus can hear James trying to corral him into his impromptu history lesson. 

“You’ll literally never get him to shut up once he’s started,” Sirius says fondly, turning away to lean against the wall at the north edge of the courtyard. There’s a steep drop on the other side when Remus looks over, a grassy cliff rushing down to meet the narrow park they walked through earlier far, far below. The altitude does something funny to his stomach, still a little unsettled from earlier; it lurches horribly, twisting inside him and making him shiver. He looks out to the bay instead, across New Town, and focuses on the water and the warm press of Sirius standing at his side. 

“Gorgeous view, isn’t it?” Sirius murmurs quietly, looking out at the hills across the estuary. “I love coming here.”

“Do you come here often?” Remus says, and Sirius smiles at the line. 

“Not often enough.” He looks down to where they’re both resting their forearms on the stone wall, and confidently reaches to link his fingers with Remus’s. “It’s nice to come here with you.”

Remus smiles, and leans into him a little, looking from the bay down to their joined hands. It’s so freeing, after Somerset House, to be able to be out in public with Sirius and not have to worry about nosy onlookers or Sirius’s parents seeing through the ruse. Up here, Sirius is practically anonymous; there’s always going to be a small chance that someone from a certain circle could recognise him from the society pages or one event or another, but it’s mostly safe, and Remus feels slightly panicked at the thought that they only have three days of this before it’s back to sneaking around and smuggling himself into Sirius’s apartment. There’s a certain thrill that comes from the secrecy, but Remus is quickly realising that that’s not in any way sustainable, and it can’t hold a candle to the feeling of standing out in the open together, linking hands and not giving a thought to who might happen to see. 

“It would be nice to do this in London,” he says quietly. 

Sirius hums non-committedly. 

“Do you think we ever could?” 

Remus’s heart feels like it might be beating a little faster than it’s supposed to. He tries to put that down to the altitude too, as opposed to nerves that he’s potentially treading on very thin ice and is at risk of ruining a Very Good Thing. It’s not like him to get greedy; historically he doesn’t even _do_ proper relationships, never having had much interest in the whole thing in his teens and then when he got to London, finding that all his needs could easily be met with the help of hookup apps which totally negated the need for any of... this. Tricky conversations. _Feelings._ It’s just messy, and feels all the more precarious because it’s _Sirius_ and for whatever else he may be, Sirius has, weirdly, been one of the only constants in Remus’s adult life to date. So it is, he thinks, probably quite unreasonable to start asking for things now when Sirius is already giving him everything he really needs. They have fun. They _get_ each other. The sex is biblical. But there’s a little ache somewhere deep in his chest, a tiny spark that he knows is only going to grow hotter if he doesn’t pursue this; it’ll burn through him, painfully, eventually ruining anything they have between them anyway because a day, two weeks, ten years from now, Remus knows - somewhere, anyway - that this _won’t_ be enough. The hookups and the late-night texting and the sneaking around in portable bathrooms and far-away cities; maybe that’s fine for now, and maybe with somebody else, another boy, it would be fine forever. It’s not like Remus has ever needed the white picket fence. But it’s _Sirius_ , and the thought of them never being something else, something _more -_ however impossible that something more might be - tears at Remus doggedly and points him indisputably down this treacherous path. 

"Yeah," says Sirius, casting a sideways grin at Remus. It's the least convincing thing Remus has ever seen. "Definitely."

Remus returns his smile, but it feels almost painful on his lips. He knows Sirius is lying. "Okay," he nods, and they stand shoulder to shoulder in silence, looking out over the bay. There are low rainclouds clinging to the foothills across the estuary, smudges of grey against the landscape, blurring the boundary between the water and the land and making the summits above look like they're floating.

"Do your parents know that you're gay?"

"Fucking hell, Remus," Sirius chokes out a laugh, and Remus battles desperately to snuff out that painful, persistent spark leading him on so recklessly. This doesn't matter; none of this _matters_ , because Sirius is here, next to him, right now, and Remus shouldn't be asking for more. Not right now; not when things are this perfect and he's wrapped up in a scarf that smells like home and Sirius is looking at him like he's afraid he's going to disappear.

"Yes," he says at length. "They know."

"Oh.”

“It’s not really your gender that's the problem."

The bottom falls out of Remus’s stomach. _Oh._ He watches as Sirius turns back out towards the ramparts, and something inside him twists painfully. So the gay aristocrat thing is actually permissible in Sirius’s world. It’s the gay-aristocrat-carrying-on-with-penniless-waiter thing that’s the roadblock. _That’s_ why they can’t do this in London; not because Sirius is afraid of being outed, but because word might get back to Sirius’s parents that their eldest son is shacking up with a serf. 

“Wooow,” he laughs humourlessly after a long, unpleasant moment, looking out towards the horizon. “Cold.”

“Christ, no, Remus” Sirius says, turning to him, his face troubled. “I'm so sorry, that came out terribly. I just mean-”

“It’s okay. I get it.”

He’s not _angry_ per se. He does get it. Everything about him is entirely incompatible with Sirius’s world and honestly, he doubts his own parents would be overly thrilled if he turned up to their two-up two-down in Thornton and presented Sirius to them with all his airs and his graces and his heightened RP. They’re alright people, but they keep to their own, too. So he gets it. But it still stings. 

“You know what my parents are like, Remus,” Sirius says quietly, running a hand distractedly through his hair. Remus can see tiny drops of mist clinging to the dark strands like diamonds. 

“I mean... not really,” he shrugs, turning away again to watch a trawler far out in the estuary, heading towards the mouth of the firth. It looks tiny from where they’re standing, like a little toy boat. “It’s not like I’ve ever actually spoken to them.”

As if Orion and Walburga Black would ever be caught dead speaking with the servants. They have household staff employed _solely_ to liaise with outside staff. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so gross. 

“They’re not good people.”

Remus looks at Sirius, startled by the bluntness. The way Sirius speaks of his parents has never been exactly favourable, but he’s never heard it put so plainly. He can’t disagree, though; the concept of a landed gentry might be as familiar to Remus as the Union Jack itself and they’re probably not _all_ bad, those aristocrats, but being of Northern, working class stock, Remus has always felt obliged to feel some sort of way about them - even if it is their kind who pay his wages - and the Black family have never exactly helped the cause. Far too much fox hunting and conspicuous consumption for Remus’s liking, and every story Sirius tells about his childhood is another nail in Orion Black’s gilded coffin.

“Look, it wasn’t meant to be an ultimatum, Sirius,” Remus says, his voice softening now. He gives Sirius a small smile. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

“No, but it’s... what it is,” he shrugs, turning to lean against the wall and stuffing his hands into his coat pockets as he scuffs his shoe against a loose bit of gravel. “So. It’s fine.”

Sirius says nothing. He’s not looking at Remus; just staring out towards the bay, chewing on his bottom lip. Remus aches for him in so many ways. If he were a braver man he’d probably reach out and touch him - reassure him, talk to him, tell him that he adores him either way and he’ll give anything that Sirius is allowed to take, even if that’s just a stolen moment in a portable bathroom and a quiet weekend away every now and then, somewhere his family can’t reach them. But he’s not that straightforward, and he doesn’t dare, so he looks away instead, and mutters something about going to do the tour. 

“I’ll come too,” Sirius says quietly after a moment, fishing his wallet out of his pocket, which pisses Remus off a bit. “Let’s all go.”

"Okay, but are you going to actually let me listen?” Remus laughs, but he knows it’s not reaching his eyes. “Or are you going to just tit about with James?”

He doesn’t mean to be cruel, and the look on Sirius’s face makes him feel like a complete dick. He just needs space to process. It’s not as if anything’s really wrong, or that their uncomfortable conversation has changed much about the situation. If anything, it’s just solidified what Remus already knew; that this can be something, but that something might not necessarily be what either of them actually want. That’s just the way things are, and there’s no sense crying about it, but the idea of spending the next hour with the others and having to pretend that conversation didn’t just happen is exhausting, and Remus finds he physically doesn’t have the energy. 

He leaves Sirius with a tight smile and a promise to meet him back outside when he’s done before wandering up to the gatehouse alone. 

There’s a cheap one-hour tour leaving in five minutes, so Remus buys one ticket for himself and then dutifully pads after a girl holding an umbrella, jostled by the sea of tourists around him, but he’s not really paying attention. He feels lousy; a wonderful day ruined by his own dogged persistence to bleed answers from Sirius, answers to questions that really could wait. He doesn’t know where this sudden urgency has come from, this need to know how this thing between them could work; it’s been less than two months, and wasn’t he the one, back at Statten, talking Sirius down and speaking strictly in hypotheticals? He needs that version of himself back, he thinks miserably; today’s version is causing altogether too much trouble. 

They're just leaving the armoury when Remus's stomach does that funny thing again, lurching unpleasantly and sending a hot rush of something up the back of his neck, and this time he can't even blame the altitude. He swallows, taking a sip from his water bottle, and doesn't hear much of what the tour guide's saying for the next fifteen minutes or so. They move onto another part of the keep and Remus wanders blindly through the next exhibition - something about horses, he thinks - and almost walks into an old Japanese couple who frown at him and hurry away clutching their rucksacks, as if he was trying to mug them or something. 

The tour concludes after what feels like an age, and Remus fumbles to hand over a fiver as a tip before slowly walking back across the courtyard towards the front gate. The fresh air is a welcome break from the stuffy galleries, and he swallows it down eagerly. 

"Alright?" Sirius asks with a tentative smile when he spots him. He looks nervous. Remus sort of hates himself. 

"Yeah," he nods, and then his vision goes a bit strange round the edges and he has to sit down on a bench at the edge of the esplanade and take another cautious swig from his water bottle.

Sirius, of course, is on him in a flash.

"Remus?" 

"I'm good," Remus says, giving him a small, reassuring smile and a pat on the hand when he sits down next to him. "Just felt a bit weird for a second. I'm fine."

Sirius narrows his eyes at him, obviously not buying it, and then he's calling James and Peter over from where they're studying a canon by the ramparts and telling them it's time to start thinking about dinner, and Remus knows he's trying to help but the mere mention of food makes his stomach twist painfully, and he has to take a series of deep breaths before he's feeling halfway normal again.

They leave the castle behind and walk back down the Royal Mile, still teeming with tourists, and Remus doesn't really pay much attention to anything beyond the feeling of Sirius's warm hand gripped tightly in his until he finds himself sitting next to him on one side of a small table, on the mezzanine of what looks to be a very high-end restaurant. There’s a man playing a grand piano over by the bar, and the wine list doesn’t have any prices on it, which is never a good sign. He resigns himself to James and Sirius paying his way again and picks up the menu. The words blur a little; there’s some sort of terrine, and a salmon thing, he thinks. The special is mussels; Remus can see them swimming in their bowl of creamy sauce. His stomach lurches. Clenching his teeth and trying to think of _anything_ but the texture of mussels - chewy, _slimy_ things - he folds up the menu, and orders a salad to start. 

"That's not like you," Peter pipes up, quirking an eyebrow at Remus's plate of greens when it arrives. "On a diet?"

"Ha, ha," Remus deadpans, and then spends the next ten minutes tentatively poking at his starter with a fork, managing a couple of leaves and a few sips of water and not much else. He's _freezing_ , but he knows it's not cold in the restaurant because everyone else is sitting around in shirtsleeves and Peter's actually slightly red in the face as he tucks into his confit duck leg. The others are chatting away, James and Pete bickering over some football match or other whilst Sirius makes jibes about them being like an old married couple, and then their main courses arrive and Remus manages exactly one bite of risotto before he puts his fork down and pushes his plate away from him, breathing shallowly through his nose.

Sirius notices immediately, and sets his own fork down to press a warm hand to Remus's forehead.

"You're _not_ alright," he says softly, concern etched on his brow, and Remus gently shoos his hand away. He's pretty sure he's sweating; he can feel his t-shirt sticking horribly to his skin when he leans back into his chair.

He gives Sirius a weak smile, and his vision does that strange thing again; dark splotches around the edges. There's a distant ringing in his ears.

"I do feel a bit weird."

"Let's get this to go," says James decisively, watching Remus carefully and waving over a waiter to box up what they haven't eaten as Sirius helps Remus into his jacket and adds his own scarf again, for good measure. Remus doesn't really remember the Uber ride back to the house, or taking his shoes and coat off, and the next thing he’s properly aware of is being seated on a plush velvet sofa with a mug of tea clasped in his hands and a worried Sirius crouched in front of him. 

"What do you think, darling?"

"Hmm?" Remus hums, vaguely conscious of Pete hovering awkwardly over by the door and James banking the fireplace at the other side of the room.

"Shall we just go up to bed?"

"No," says Remus quietly, and a sip of his tea does seem to bring him back to himself a little. "No, I'm alright now. I just need to sit for a minute."

They end up all piling into the sitting room, fire roaring, Remus with his head resting wearily on Sirius's shoulder and an old whodunnit playing out on the television in the corner. James and Pete are involved in a quiet game of cards, which James is clearly winning; it's nice, being together like this, and a part of Remus feels bad about ruining dinner for everyone but maybe this is better anyway, he thinks, as he lets himself be lulled by the crackling of the logs in the hearth and the gentle, repetitive motion of Sirius's fingers running soothingly through his hair.

Until his stomach twists horribly again, and he slowly sits up and rubs absently at a dull pain that's starting to throb in his forehead.

"I think I will go up to bed," he murmurs, smiling vaguely at Sirius. "I just want to lie down."

Sirius nods, his brow creased with concern. "Alright. Shall I come up with you?"

"No, it's fine." He gives Sirius hand a squeeze, then pushes himself bodily up from the sofa. "I'll see you in a bit."

The others wave their goodnights to him, Sirius promising to come up and check on him soon and still looking beside himself with worry, and it takes Remus far longer than it should to scale the two flights of stairs up to their bedroom. He stoops carefully to tug his wash bag out of his suitcase, fumbling with the zip as he wanders into the bathroom, and he's just about to pop the lid on his toothpaste when his stomach roils violently and he knows he's not keeping it down this time; he falls to his knees and scrabbles to lift the toilet seat just in time, then retches painfully into the bowl. It's horrible; his eyes are streaming and he can feel cold sweat trickling down his back, and when it finally subsides he's left trembling from the exertion, clinging onto the edge of the toilet just to stay half-upright. And then it happens again, and again, and he honestly doesn't know how much time passes after that because the next thing he's really aware of is lying on his side on the cold tiles, shivering violently and curling around the godawful ache in his stomach. 

It could be seconds or days before the bathroom door swings open, and then he's vaguely conscious of someone - Sirius, he hopes - brushing his sweaty hair out of his face and trying to help him into sitting up. He thinks, miserably, of a few hours ago when the two of them were together on this very floor and how nice that was, and how horrid _this_ is in comparison, and then someone's coaxing him to take a sip of water and it _is_ Sirius, and he's helping him to their bed and carefully undressing him and tucking him under the covers, and shouting something about a bowl in the direction of the hallway. And then it's just black.


	3. Chapter 3

It's still dark when he opens his eyes. There's a lamp on somewhere, but it's definitely still nighttime, and Remus feels completely disorientated. His mouth tastes disgusting, and his throat feels hot and raw. His back hurts, too; he flexes his shoulder blades experimentally, and groans quietly at the pull on his aching muscles.

"Remus?"

He frowns, turning carefully under the sheets to see Sirius sitting up next to him on the bed, a magazine open on his lap.

" _Hi_ ," Sirius smiles, and God, that's magic itself. Remus feels like he's been away for weeks, although he thinks he's only been asleep for a few hours, but the relief on Sirius's face makes him feel like he's returning from the bloody war or something.

He croaks out a weak _"Hello,"_ and then Sirius is guiding him to slowly sit up against the plush pillows banked along the headboard, tucking the sheets back around his lap as he reaches for the glass of water on the bedside table and helps Remus bring it carefully to his lips.

"Just take small sips, I think," he murmurs, and Remus hums in agreement.

"Did I throw up?" he asks quietly when Sirius takes the glass away, and Sirius nods with a small, apologetic smile.

"You did, darling."

"Oh."

And then Sirius is shuffling closer to him on the bed, and carefully bundling him into his arms and pressing his lips softly to Remus's curls and Remus thinks that's a bit much, really, because it's not like he's dying and he can't even have been asleep for that long so it can't have been _that_ bad. He lets him though, and revels in that feeling he's fast becoming addicted to; the safety and comfort of being wrapped up in Sirius Black. It's incomparable.

"We think it was that prawn sandwich."

Remus blinks, still trapped where Sirius is holding him against his chest. 

_Oh._

It's almost funny. He'd only bought the bloody thing to prove a point, and it _had_ tasted vile and that, really, would make perfect sense, and how annoying and pathetic and gross that a _prawn sandwich_ might've ruined the first night of this trip for them all. It was, Remus thinks in hindsight, entirely not worth it.

"I'm sorry," Remus mumbles against Sirius's jumper, sounding about as miserable as he feels.

Sirius squeezes him, pressing another kiss to the top of his head. "Don't you dare."

There's a silence, and then, so quietly:

"You had me a little worried, to be honest."

Remus pushes himself back so he can look at Sirius, and frowns as he rubs his eyes, still sticky from sleep. 

"Really?"

“I was all for putting you in the car and driving to the Infirmary, but James talked me down.” He’s fiddling with the tassels on the heavy tartan blanket. “It’s not really his area but he seemed pretty confident you weren’t at death’s door. He said he thought it might be food poisoning when you had the funny turn at the restaurant.”

“His area?” Remus asks in confusion. 

“Well, he wants to be in paediatrics, really. But I suppose children get food poisoning too, so...”

“What... James is a _doctor_?”

“Well not yet, obviously.” Sirius blinks at him. 

“But... he’s going to be a doctor? Like, an actual doctor?”

“Yes, he will be,” Sirius says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “A paediatrician.”

Remus wonders if the prawn sandwich has somehow affected his memory. In all his years of sort-of-knowing James and his recent months of actually knowing him, at no point did he consider that there was much more to the man than simply being extremely rich and extremely flamboyant. He likes him, a lot, and he’s kind and generous and a fierce, fierce friend, but Remus can’t parse the idea of James Potter in scrubs at all. 

“I thought he just... sat around drinking champagne and not doing anything.”

Sirius laughs. “Well, he does, in the summer. He’s back at uni next week though, so this is sort of his last hurrah for a while. Hence the whisky.”

“Are his parents okay with it?” Remus asks, and wonders if James is under the same familial pressures of Sirius is; perhaps he’s going to be some fancy, private doctor, strictly tending to the children of the aristocracy and nobody else. He cringes inwardly at his own ugly thought; it doesn’t suit James at all. 

“Oh yeah,” Sirius breathes, settling back down on the pillows. “They’d let him be a balloon artist if they thought it’d make him happy. I mean they’re... you know,” he waves a hand airily, presumably gesturing to the grandness of the room or the size of the house or James’s family’s innumerable estates up and down the island. “But they’re actually wonderful people.”

Remus nods, settling back down against the pillows. “That’s nice,” he murmurs faintly, still feeling rather hazy. He glances at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Are the others still up?”

“They’re out,” says Sirius, pushing his magazine aside as he leans back against the headboard. “James needed running so I told Pete to take him out for some dinner.”

“We already had dinner.” Remus blinks in confusion. He’s lost. 

“We had dinner yesterday, yes.”

“Yesterday?”

There’s a renewed line of worry creasing Sirius’s forehead as he looks down at Remus, fussing a little with the covers around him. “It’s Saturday night, love,” he says softly. “You’ve been asleep all day.”

“Oh.”

He feels suddenly, inexplicably sad. What a waste. They only have the weekend, and then it’s back to London and real life and hiding all of this away. And Remus has wasted a whole precious day in bed, barely aware that Sirius was even in the same room as him. The thought makes his eyes feel a little hot. 

“And I,” Sirius goes on, glancing down at Remus’s forlorn expression. “Have finished all of James’s mum’s magazines from 2015, which must’ve been the last time they were up. So a day well spent, I think.”

He smiles down at Remus, obviously trying to make him feel better about the whole thing. It works, of course. It’s Sirius. 

They pass another half hour or so in bed, Sirius filling him in on the night before - quickly skimming by the part where Sirius came upstairs to find him barely conscious on the bathroom floor, he notes - and then this morning, when Peter burnt the sausages James had gone out to buy from the butchers down the road and James chased him out into the back garden and threatened to beat him with a spatula. 

“It was all a bit disturbing, really,” says Sirius, and Remus chuckles softly at the visual. “Kinky, those two.”

Sirius helps him into the bathroom after that, and there’s no awkwardness or hesitation as he quietly undresses Remus and joins him in the vast, marbled shower, always touching him somewhere - a hand on his lower back, fingers brushing his elbow as if that might stop Remus from falling. The warm water is a tonic on Remus’s skin, sticky and uncomfortable from a whole day spent in bed, and he relaxes into Sirius’s touch with a contented, grateful hum when Sirius carefully begins to wash his hair for him, massaging a rich shampoo with a comforting, familiar scent into his sleep-flattened curls. They go back to bed after that, Remus foregoing Sirius’s offer of something to eat, insisting that he’s fine but not at all ready to think about food yet. He’s vaguely aware of James coming in at some point and the two of them talking quietly about him, and Remus lets their voices wash over him and lull him back into a deep, comfortable sleep. 

***

James and Peter are standing at the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen when Sirius helps Remus downstairs in his pyjamas the next morning, and they launch into a boisterous round of applause when he enters the room, both grinning at him. They’ve laid out a small breakfast; bacon sandwiches and crumpets for them, and a plate of plain toast and butter for Remus.

Remus smiles as he takes his seat. “What is this, Little Women?”

He winces inwardly at how fragile his voice sounds, and marvels at the damage one dodgy prawn can do to a man. He feels drained; like he’s run a marathon and scaled a mountain back-to-back, on nothing but an expired sandwich and a single bite of risotto. You’d think, he muses as he lets Sirius pour him a cup of tea, that thirty-six hours of sleep would be reparation enough but the thought of doing much more than sitting down for the rest of the morning exhausts him.

“You did have us a little worried for a moment there, old chap,” says James, settling into the chair opposite Remus and pushing the plunger down on the cafetière in the centre of the table. 

Remus smiles contritely. “I’m sorry.”

“Pete cried,” James adds earnestly, and Peter looks at him in outrage. 

“I didn’t _cry_ , fuck off!” He turns to Remus, shaking his head. “I didn’t cry, obviously. I just wanted to know if you were going to be okay. That’s not a crime, is it?” He looks back to James and scowls. 

Remus laughs. “Well, thanks, James, for... doctoring me.”

“You’re very welcome, old boy,” James says affably, spreading marmalade thickly on his crumpet. “You’re my first patient, technically. Well, first patient who wasn’t already dead. And let me tell you, those cadavers cannot projectile vomit like that.”

“James, shall we er...” Sirius makes a cease and desist gesture with his hand, “on the vomit and cadavers talk? Thank you.”

James looks suitably chastised, and he smiles at Remus apologetically. “Ah right, yes. Sorry, old chap. You just eat your toast, there’s a lad.”

A heavy rain sets in before they’ve finished breakfast, the sky outside a dark, steely grey, so they agree to stay indoors and James goes to dig an old jigsaw puzzle out of a cupboard on the first floor landing. They set it up on the kitchen table; it’s an illustrated map of Scotland, all borders and lochs and little drawings of stags and otters and tiny, snow-capped peaks. Remus and Pete set to sorting out the edge pieces whilst James puts the kettle on for another pot of tea, and at around eleven Sirius starts preparing a lunch for them, a pot of soup bubbling away on the stove as he kneads dough for a white loaf. 

“That soup smells bloody good, Sirius,” says Peter, tapping a jigsaw piece into place just outside Glasgow. “You should offer to do the catering for the Statten luncheon one year.”

“I did,” Remus hears Sirius say softly without turning around, and he knows the rest of the story without Sirius having to elaborate. 

“It’d be wasted on that lot, anyway,” James says without missing a beat. “Now the Potter Christmas party, on the other hand. Magnificent. Sirius and mum always do the food for that.”

Sirius grins at them over his shoulder. “Mrs Potter is my culinary sensei,” he explains, still working his dough on the counter.

“And the only reason you can even make toast without burning it,” adds James. 

“Exactly. If I can become half the cook Mrs Potter is, I’ll consider my life a roaring success.”

Remus smiles at him fondly. He likes the idea of Sirius having a set of parents he can be close to, even if they’re not his, and he even feels a little wistful when he finds himself comparing this new ideal of the Potters with his own quiet, uninvolved family. It’s not that he doesn’t get on with his mum and dad; it’s more that he’s never felt he had much in common with either of them, and his suspicions that they weren’t overly fussed about him in general were pretty much confirmed the day after his fifteenth birthday when he told his mum he was gay and she sort of deflated a little in her seat in front of the television, before sighing, murmuring a soft _“that’s a shame,”_ and going back to her quiz show. 

An exclamation from James brings him back to himself; he’s finally found the Outer Hebrides, and he confidently pushes the piece into place with a triumphant nod. 

They spend another hour on the puzzle, the aroma of Sirius’s bread slowly filling the kitchen and making even Remus’s stomach rumble with anticipation. There’s a panicked search when they notice that the last piece of the jigsaw is missing, and Remus finds it a few minutes later stuck to his sock, of all places; a little patch of something just west of Inverness, which he taps into place to a round of applause from the others before James is setting placemats down on top of the finished map and Sirius is ladling the soup into bowls for them, the savoury aroma of potatoes and leeks making Remus’s mouth water. He eats almost the whole bowlful - although he realises, halfway through, that Sirius has given him a slightly more manageable portion that the rest of them - and two slices of the warm bread which melts in his mouth and fills his empty, aching stomach. 

“That was lovely,” he says quietly when James starts to clear their bowls away. “Thank you.”

Sirius smiles, and gives him a soft, chaste kiss. Peter makes himself scarce then, too, collecting up all their empty mugs from earlier and taking them to the sink to help James with the washing up. 

“You’re looking a bit more like yourself,” Sirius says, resting a hand on Remus’s shoulder and running soothing circles with his thumb on the side of Remus’s neck. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, yeah. I kind of fancy some fresh air, actually.”

The rain outside has calmed to a light drizzle and a low, grey mist, and soon they’re all bundling up into coats and scarves and boots and, at Sirius’s insistence, a bobble hat for Remus, and then James is leading them out along the cobbled street to a sprawling botanical garden a short walk from the house. It’s quiet, the summer blooms having given way to coppers and umber and deep, towering evergreens, and Remus isn’t sure he’s ever known peace like wandering through the misty park hand-in-hand with Sirius, their only company an occasional squirrel scampering along the russet branches of the oak trees overhead. 

“I’m sorry I’ve wasted our trip,” he says softly, and Sirius squeezes his hand as they walk. 

“You haven’t at all.”

There’s a comfortable silence as they watch James and Peter far in the distance, both crouching by the side of the path as they try to take a photograph of a robin using James’s phone. Sirius stops at a bench at the edge of a small lake, and Remus sits gratefully, the short walk from the house having taken it out of him for a moment.

“Listen,” Sirius says, glancing across at him and chewing absently on his bottom lip. “The things I said on Friday, at the castle-”

Remus shakes his head. “I really don’t want to talk about that now,” he says with a small smile, leaning into Sirius’s side. They’ve already lost a whole day, and tomorrow they’ll be driving back to London and it won’t be like this, here; peaceful and still, the mist cloaking everything outside their orbit so the entire world shrinks to this bench and the two of them sitting on it. “Can we just talk about it another time?”

Sirius watches him for a moment, studying him, and then he’s nodding, squeezing his hand again and letting Remus rest his head on his shoulder. “Yeah,” he says, his voice soft. “Another time.”

They wander round the gardens for a while longer, taking in the scarlet of the Japanese maples reflected in the lakes, the rowans crowded with berries, the auburns and ochres and olives of the beech trees that line the path back down to the gates. Sirius suggests heading home after that, but Remus fancies the fresh air and cool mist on his face are bringing him back to life, somehow, and so they take a taxi up to Old Town and stroll up the Royal Mile, popping into a couple of souvenir shops so Peter can buy a box of shortbread for Mary and so Sirius, despite Remus’s protests, can buy an oversized t-shirt with a picture of a West Highland terrier wearing a tam o' shanter on it because he thinks Remus would look darling in it.

“It’ll do for pyjamas, I suppose,” Remus mumbles at the checkout when Sirius pushes the bag into his hands with a grin. 

They bundle into their pub just down from the castle around five, and it's whisky for the others and a lemonade for Remus's still-fragile stomach. Sirius only has one though, Remus notices, before switching to soft drinks himself. James, on the other hand, seems to be committed to making the absolute most of his last night of inebriation before his return to school next week and puts away dram after dram, selecting a different bottle each round and becoming increasingly slurred in his ramblings to Remus about this distillery and that region and something about saltwater that Remus can’t make head nor tails of. Pete, for his part, appears to be in some sort of unspoken competition with James, clearly attempting to match him drink-for-drink, albeit with vodka and coke after he declares halfway through the night that he does not like whisky and never will. A wide-eyed James lunges comically at Pete across the table at that, pressing a silencing finger to Pete’s lips that ends up somewhere near his left nostril. 

“You dishonour my ancestors, Pettigrew,” he slurs, glancing round the pub desperately as if dead Potters of generations past might be lining the walls, wailing mournfully over their descendant fraternising with such uncouth an Englishman as Peter. “You dishonour _me._ ”

Peter seems to care little for the now-tarnished Potter name, however, as he brushes James’s hand aside and wanders off vaguely in the direction of the bar, returning fifteen minutes later with another vodka and coke and some bags of pork scratchings, which James turns his nose up at before single-handedly working his way through two of the three packets. 

The whole thing ends with the four of them spilling out onto the cobbles a little after ten, James and Peter arm-in-arm, singing an awful duet of some football chant or other, and a completely sober Remus and Sirius walking hand-in-hand about ten paces ahead of them, taking it in turns to glance back to make sure the other two aren’t about to be mowed down by a passing taxi. They’re about halfway home when James shouts that he has an idea, and Remus turns to see him stooping down at the side of the street to let Peter clamber ungainly onto his shoulders, using a nearby lamppost for support. James is visibly straining when he stands, knuckles white as he clutches at Pete's thighs to try and balance him. 

"Fucking hell, Pete," he pants, already red in the face as he takes a tiny, tentative step across the cobbles, and Remus wonders absently where the nearest hospital is. "You weigh a fucking tonne."

“James, you absolute reprobate,” says Sirius tiredly, with all the fond exasperation of a long-suffering spouse. “Put him down. You’ll break yourself and you’re the only one here who knows first aid.”

The walk home takes them about three times as long as it should, and when they finally get in Remus and Sirius agree silently to divide and conquer - that is, Remus drags Peter away from where he’s hopefully eyeing one of the plush couches in the sitting room and bodily forces him up the first flight of stairs to his bedroom, whilst Sirius joins James in front of the freezer in the kitchen and calmly talks him down from preparing a whole turbot as a midnight snack. 

It’s past twelve by the time Sirius slips into their second-floor bedroom to join Remus, carefully pushing the door shut before collapsing against it and closing his eyes tiredly. 

“They’re asleep. I think.”

Remus grins from where he’s sitting on the bed. 

“When did we become the responsible adults in this?”

“Christ knows,” Sirius grumbles, throwing himself down on the mattress next to where Remus is sitting. He scrubs a weary hand over his face then smiles up at him, running his thumb lightly back and forth across Remus’s knee. “How’re you feeling, anyway?”

“I’m fine,” Remus says softly, smiling back at him. “Tired, but fine. Thank you.”

Sirius gazes up at him for a long moment, and then he’s pushing himself up, and leaning in to give Remus a slow, chaste kiss, holding his chin gently between his finger and thumb. Remus sighs into it; even now, sleepy and worn-out and still recovering from yesterday, Remus comes _alive_ at Sirius’s touch, and they move in tandem. He lies back against the plush pillows, parting his legs so Sirius can settle between them under the sheets, and then Sirius is kissing him again, on the mouth, everywhere, _so_ sweetly, his hands gently cradling Remus's face as if he's something precious and priceless. Remus cards his fingers through Sirius's hair, smiling at the kisses being peppered across his cheeks, and then Sirius kisses him lightly on the tip of his nose and something twists inside of him that has nothing to do with prawn sandwiches. He still feels a little weak when he props himself up on his elbows to pull his t-shirt over his head - something to do with not having eaten anything more substantial than bread and soup in over forty-eight hours - and Sirius must notice, because he’s coaxing Remus back down onto the pillows again and smiling at him as he reaches down under the covers to tug gently on Remus’s boxer shorts, helping him kick them off before tossing his own clothes into a pile on the floor and coming back to rest on top of Remus lightly beneath the heavy sheets. 

“Hi,” he whispers, grinning down at him, and Remus sucks in a gentle, slow breath as he feels the weight of Sirius on top of him, feels his warm, tanned skin, and the heat of them pressed against each other under the blankets. 

“Hi,” he murmurs back, a smiling pulling at his lips even as Sirius starts to rock his hips _so_ gently, pressing against Remus just so, before he captures his lips in a long, slow kiss. There’s a hand in his hair, but it’s light, so tender as Sirius grabs loosely at his curls; no pressure at all, no pain. 

They stay like that, warm in the bed, for what could be hours. Remus falls through time entirely, lost to the feeling of their now hard lengths brushing together under the sheets and the torturously slow kisses they share as Sirius cards his long fingers through Remus’s hair and Remus almost whimpers, trembling at his touch. It’s so _unhurried_ , so unlike them; it’s perfect. 

Sirius moves eventually, slipping a hand between them to start slowly stroking Remus with a warm palm, and it’s heaven for a brief moment before Remus whispers that he wants more. He shifts so they can slide a pillow beneath his hips, and then watches as Sirius reaches for his wash bag before he begins slowly working Remus open, one hand between Remus’s legs and the other still running soothingly through his hair. Sirius gazes down at him, watching his expression through every movement and every gentle push of his fingers and _this_ , Remus thinks, _is heaven._ This, right here. This boy. This is everything; an echelon of perfection Remus has never even glimpsed before, and now it’s right in front of him, amazingly, indescribably. 

“ _Sirius_ ,” he whispers, breathless, his voice catching on a waver and a lump in his throat. “I...”

“I know.”

He’s kissing him then, as deep as Remus can ever remember, giving him everything in that one moment and then he’s sliding into him, so slowly, so carefully, until they’re rocking gently together under the covers. Remus has a hand on the back of Sirius’s neck, the two of them sharing the same breath, so close is Sirius to him as he slowly cants his hips back and forth, each stroke catching that spot inside Remus that makes him see glory itself, and he can’t look away; he can’t tear himself from the way Sirius is gazing down at him, as if he’s the only thing that exists in the world. Remus never wants to look away. 

It doesn’t take long for him; he’s soon gasping breathlessly, feeling himself spill between them as he grasps loosely at Sirius’s hair and swallows past a great, towering wave of _something_ that washes over him, and then he feels Sirius seize on top of him as he stills, pushing deep inside and burying a long, low groan in the hollow of Remus’s neck. 

They lay there together afterwards, coming down as one, Remus gently running his fingers through the long strands of Sirius’s hair as he rests his head on Remus’s chest. There are more slow, tender kisses, and then Sirius is returning from the bathroom with a warm flannel to clean Remus up. A lamp is flicked off, and Remus smiles at the familiar weight of Sirius behind him, strong arms coming to wrap around his chest and pull him close beneath the blankets, the tickle of Sirius’s hair against the back of his neck. 

He knows, as he drifts off to sleep, that it's the happiest he’s ever been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pure fluff. Thanks for reading - comments always welcome! Final chapter will be up next weekend so until then, stay safe, wash your hands, and don't buy discounted prawn sandwiches from motorway service stations x


	4. Chapter 4

It’s another grey morning that dawns on their last day in Edinburgh, and Remus finds himself awake before it’s even properly light outside. He’s had more sleep in the past three days than he’d usually get in a week, he reasons, so it makes sense, and he spends an achingly perfect hour warm under the covers with Sirius curled around him, watching blackbirds to and fro outside their window. He could stay here with him forever, he thinks, and be blissfully happy to spend their days doing jigsaw puzzles with James and Pete, wandering the ancient city hand-in-hand with Sirius and drinking whisky late into the night to the sound of bagpipes and laughter. They could get a home of their own, the two of them: a little townhouse tucked away down a cobbled street, or in the shadow of the castle, or away in the foothills outside the city, a cottage out on the edge of the wild moors with a vegetable patch and a woodburner and a big, cosy bed covered in tartan blankets. Remus doesn't think he would ever want for anything if he could find himself in that little cottage with Sirius.

Sirius stirs eventually, and they exchange lazy, slow kisses across Remus’s pillow. Remus remembers getting up in the night to use the bathroom and had slipped into his ridiculous terrier t-shirt from yesterday, feeling the chill in the room, but Sirius is still naked under the sheets and Remus luxuriates in running his hands over Sirius's smooth, warm skin, feeling him wake to his touch, sighing contentedly into their kisses.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Sirius whispers at length, and - after checking on the others, who are still fast asleep and blissfully unaware of the hangovers that undoubtedly await them when they open their eyes - they bundle up in their coats and scarves again, pulling their boots on in the milky light of the hallway and quietly slipping out. 

They set off along James’s road and turn down the hill at the end of the street, meandering over the cobbles, chatting lightly about nothing in particular. It’s another unseasonably cold morning, and Remus laughs softly when Sirius reaches over to tug the borrowed scarf further up around Remus's neck, fussing over the buttons of his jacket to make sure no chill can reach him. 

They stop for breakfast at a tiny café overlooking the old docks and Remus orders a full plate at Sirius’s insistence, which they end up sharing since Remus still doesn’t fancy more than a slice of toast and a few beans. He sips at a cup of Earl Grey instead, watching Sirius fondly as he devours the rest of the breakfast, and then they’re wandering hand-in-hand out of the port and west along the waterfront, until the harbour wall opens up to a wild beach further up the inlet. The sands stretch out lazily towards the steely water, dotted with banks of craggy rocks covered in green, mossy seaweed. There’s still a low mist on the firth, a haze blurring the land at the other side of the estuary. They stop at a stretch of path with an old iron railing hemming the bank down to the sands, and they clamber onto it, perching on the fence side-by-side as they look out over the water. 

Sirius clears his throat. 

“Remus,” he starts, then takes a breath. Remus holds his. “What I said at the castle...”

It's the part where Remus should probably tell him it doesn’t matter. Leave it, whilst it’s still alive, and don’t push it or taunt it or agitate it and risk upturning the whole thing again like he almost did out on the esplanade. It’s _safer_ to leave it, and he managed it yesterday, but sitting here with Sirius now, after the weekend, after last night, he just can’t. If he was dogged before it’s nothing to what he’s feeling now, having no other path open to him but the one that demands more, that demands an answer, and he doesn’t need a timeline or a plan or a schedule of the whole thing. He just needs _hope_. So he says nothing, and keeps looking out at the bay, his hand a hair’s breadth from Sirius’s as they both grip the rusting iron railing beneath them. 

“My parents are... difficult,” Sirius pushes on, gazing out at the horizon. “They’re never going to change.”

“I guessed as much.”

“But neither is this. Neither is the way I feel about you.”

Remus’s heart skips. _There’s his hope;_ a quiet accession that there is a way through this, and that Sirius is willing to search for it with him, and maybe there can't be any exacts at the moment, any blueprint for where they’re going but that’s fine, that’s so far beyond fine that Remus feels himself biting down on his lip to hold back a grin. It’s just hope, and so much of it.

“So, I will work it out, Remus,” Sirius nods, turning to him. Remus has never seen him look so determined. “I promise you. You are..." he shakes his head, frustrated, as if he can't find the words. "Everything," he settles on, shrugging, and Remus has to swallow past the lump in his throat. "And I feel like I've been waiting for this for eight years." He takes Remus's hand on the railing, locking their fingers together. "And I just refuse to let them take you away from me.”

They talk for what could be hours after that, until the mist on the water has been burnt away by the low autumn sun, and the trawlers are chugging back up the inlet with their catches for the day. They talk more about Sirius’s parents, and Remus tells him about his own, and how they don’t really speak very often anymore but how that’s actually okay, right now, because Remus has Pete and the constant, maternal presence of Minerva, and the tension and the fragility of the morning ebb away until Sirius is throwing his head back and cackling as Remus regales him with the story of his twenty-first birthday when Pete got him drunk during a shift and Minerva had to take him home and tuck him into bed herself. 

“I hope she didn’t put your pyjamas on for you,” he says through his laughter. 

“She had to!” Remus exclaims, and Sirius howls. “I’d thrown up all over my shirt!”

They talk about Sirius’s birthdays then, and realise together that Remus’s first event with McGonagall’s was actually Sirius’s eighteenth birthday party. It had been a lavish thing at a place on Knightsbridge, the entire serving team at the time drafted in for the afternoon, but Remus, in his inexperience, hadn’t been allowed out of the kitchens and Sirius had spent most of the day sitting in the dining room next door with James, away from the guests and his parents and, Remus deduces, the crushing weight of having just reached his majority and the knowledge that his path henceforth was to be entirely dictated by his father. 

“Reg’s eighteenth, on the other hand,” Sirius chuckles, but when Remus glances across at him he looks almost sad. It’s a look he only seems to get when he talks about his brother, he's noticed; something between worry and regret, perhaps. He hates to see it. “You weren’t there for that one, were you?”

Remus shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t working that day.”

“Just as well.” He’s quiet for a moment, looking out at the firth. Remus watches him pick absently at a flaking patch of rust on the railing. “He was in his element."

Remus doesn’t know how to read that. He knows so little about Sirius's brother, aside from how they look so alike and how they don't really get on, Remus doesn't think, and yet gets the sense that Sirius would take a bullet for him anyway. He's only spoken to him once, at Statten three summers ago, when Pete had accidentally spilled a glass of champagne down the sleeve of Regulus's suit jacket and Remus had been forced to carefully intervene when he'd heard the younger Black son laying into Peter outside the catering tent. He'd thought him a complete prick, ruder and more entitled than even his elder brother, but then his understanding of Sirius has changed so fundamentally in the past few months that he wonders now if he hasn't misjudged Regulus too, in part.

“What does Regulus want to do?” he asks softly, following Sirius's lead.

“Law,” Sirius laughs ironically, sniffing. “I think he likes the idea of wearing a pinstripe suit in a bar in Manhattan, surrounded by Victoria’s Secret models. That’s very him. And of course, it would make mother and father so proud, so," he trails off with a sardonic smile, but there's real grief there when he shakes his head and looks out across the water.

“So let him do that," Remus says after a moment, gently nudging Sirius with his shoulder. "You do what you want to do; leave the law to him.”

Sirius is quiet.

“What _do_ you want to do?”

“You’re going to think it’s so silly,” Sirius murmurs, shaking his head again and chewing on his bottom lip. 

“What,” Remus smiles, quirking an eyebrow at him, “sillier than serving crab canapés to your lot?”

Sirius smiles back, and there’s a long silence before he starts speaking. 

“This spring, when I was up at Craignure,” he says quietly, still looking out at the bay, “we renovated those cottages, and then we, erm - so we started planning this outbuilding that we want to put up on one of the farms, and it’s this sort of, erm... it’s going to be this kind of pitched barn,” he breaks off, using his hands to mark out a triangle in the air for Remus, “with a sort of A-frame roof and then the attic would be a bunk barn sort of setup, and then a working barn below and the idea would be that, you know, schools or Scout groups or whoever could hire it for Outward Bound sort of things.”

Remus watches Sirius as he presses on, getting steadily more animated and sure of himself as he goes, detailing his plans to extend an old stables on another farm for the same sort of thing, and then going on to tell Remus about a row of dilapidated old workers’ dwellings at the edge of the village that he thinks would make great business premises for some of the local shopkeepers, and how he wants to go back and work with the architect on the plans next spring. He talks about a chapel at the south side of the deer park that needs rescuing from disrepair and ivy, and then an old bothy right out on the far reaches of the estate, up in the glen, that Sirius thinks can be brought back to life and rebuilt, and would make a great house for someone someday. It's intoxicating; Sirius comes alive as he talks, the passion in his voice unmistakable as he outlines his plans to Remus, and the excitement sparks off him beautifully. It's amazing to Remus that this is the man who, not eight weeks ago, Remus assumed was nothing more than a layabout aristocrat, interested in champagne and parties and little else. He has never in his life so completely misread a person, and he finds himself increasingly overcome with a deep desire to keep digging, keep searching to find out what else Sirius hides beneath the facade. He could study him forever, he thinks, and still want to know more.

“And that’s what I want to do,” Sirius shrugs, finishing his speech and suddenly, heartbreakingly, shrinking again, looking uncertainly at Remus. “One day, anyway. It is silly, isn’t it?”

Remus shakes his head, and grins. “No. I think it’s a great idea. But you can do that, can’t you? I mean... they’re your estates.”

Sirius holds up a finger in correction, smiling ruefully. “But I’m not an estate manager.”

“Couldn’t you be?” Remus frowns. 

“My father doesn’t think we should get our hands dirty like that,” Sirius says, grimacing, gazing out at the estuary. “This spring was... an appeasement, of sorts. He’d let me spend the season up here working on the cottages if I agreed to go to Paris at the end of the summer. He'd just never allow it.”

There’s a silence, both of them looking out across the water.

“What about James?” says Remus at length, looking back to Sirius thoughtfully. 

Sirius frowns at him. “What about James?”

Remus shrugs. “He has land up here, doesn’t he? I mean... don’t the Potters have almost as much land as the Blacks? Go work there. They’d have you, wouldn’t they?” He smiles. “Go be their estate manager instead.”

Remus watches Sirius stare distantly out at the horizon, and he can see the cogs turning; a solution that Sirius, apparently, hadn’t considered, but that - in theory, at least - could give him a way off the stifling path his father is forcing him down. He tries not to think about what might happen to the two of them if Sirius leaves London, and disappears off to one of James’s houses in the far reaches of Scotland, a new life away from the city and his parents and the annual Statten Park luncheon. Away from Remus.

“Well,” he says gently, trying to push aside the onrushing wave of panic at the thought of them being permanently separated by hundreds of miles and fresh starts in which he may not have a place. “Either way. You’ll figure it out.”

He smiles at Sirius. 

“Go to your estates in the north. Build your cottages.”

“And where do you fit into that?” Sirius says quietly, and the icy kernel of panic cleaving to something inside Remus’s chest sparks and melts as quickly as it was formed, and Remus has to fight back the soppy grin threatening to break out across his face. 

“We do cater a lot of Law Society events in the City,” he shrugs, looking across at Sirius with an ironic smile instead. “So you’re giving up a lot of quality time with me there.”

“Any good at gardening?”

“Terrible,” Remus laughs, and he feels like his heart might burst as the path becomes clearer, and suddenly that cottage with the vegetable patch on the wild moors doesn’t seem quite so far away. “Fast learner though,” he says softly after a moment, and Sirius nods, gazing at him with such intensity and fragile, cautious determination that Remus can’t help but lean in and kiss him, one hand still gripping the rusting iron beneath him, and the other coming up to cradle Sirius’s face, his fingers brushing against loose strands of hair, still cool and damp from the morning mist. 

“I just need some time,” says Sirius, his voice so soft, almost pleading when he looks at Remus, their foreheads resting together as they sit side-by-side on the railings. 

“Don’t rush yourself,” Remus murmurs against his lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

***

It’s Sirius who drives them back to London later that day. James emerges from his bedroom just after Remus and Sirius get back from their walk, and makes such a sorry sight that they immediately take pity on him and set to cooking a hearty fry up with toast and tea and orange juice in an effort to bring him back to life. It only half works, and he’s still slouched over the kitchen table with his head in his hands when Pete appears at lunchtime and looks, if anything, even worse than James. 

“Nothing less than you deserve, Pete,” says Sirius loudly, slapping him on the back heartily as he passes him a mug of coffee, and Remus scolds him through a barely stifled laugh to stop being so mean as James moans in pain from his seat at the table. 

They’re packed and ready to go by one, and then Remus and Sirius are bundling the others into the back of the car and providing them with water bottles and crisps and ibuprofen. 

“It’s your car you’re going to throw up on,” Sirius warns a grumbling James, winding his window down for him before shutting the door carefully and climbing into the front seat. They roll along the cobbles, winding through the long streets of New Town and then out to the coast, and Remus cranes his neck to get one last glimpse of the castle looming steadfast, unyielding on its rocky outcrop. 

“We’ll come back?” he says quietly to Sirius when he catches him looking, and Sirius smiles. 

“Definitely.” 

This time, Remus believes him. 

The drive home is markedly quieter than their journey up on Friday, Pete and James both sleeping most of the way in the back and Remus and Sirius up front chatting softly and listening to a local folk radio station playing bagpipes and drums all the way to the border. It drops out around Berwick, and Remus switches to a playlist of eighties hits that soon has them singing along and eventually waking a grouchy Peter up in the back seat. James, apparently still suffering greatly after his indulgences the night before, sleeps right through it. They reach London by dusk, and they drop Peter off outside Euston station then battle across the city to Cannon Street where Remus and Sirius take a whole fifteen minutes to say goodbye, clinging to one another and grinning in the middle of the leaf-strewn pavement.

It’s two weeks before Remus hears from him again. 

There’s a text, after they eventually part, letting Remus know that he’s home and he’s thinking about him and that he’ll call him soon with plans to meet, but the call never comes. Remus tries not to dwell on it; it’s a busy few days for both of them, Remus working full hours catering matriculation dinners for all the city universities and Sirius, Remus knows, heading back out to Paris to tidy up some loose ends from his work there in August. The first week slips by with a few texts from Remus that Sirius doesn’t reply to, and then a phone call that Sirius doesn’t pick up. By the following Monday, Remus swallows his pride and texts James to see if he’s heard anything from France and that, too, goes unanswered. 

“Maybe he’s lost his phone?” Pete suggests one night whilst they’re clearing away the dessert plates at a society formal out in Greenwich. 

Remus nods. “Yeah, probably,” he says quietly, and doesn’t believe it for a second. If Sirius lost his phone he’d simply buy another phone. Realistically he’s inclined to think that if something had happened to Sirius - and the mere thought of that sends a cold jolt down the back of his neck - then James would’ve got in touch with him, sooner or later, and the more time that passes the clearer it is to Remus that what’s actually going on is something far less dramatic: a simple change of mind. Not that it stacks up for him, at all. He’s never seen Sirius look so determined as he did on the last morning in Edinburgh when they were sitting together down on the waterfront; he was going to fight for this, they both were, and the notion that he could have so rapidly and so singularly gone back on that makes Remus’s stomach twist in a way that’s disgustingly reminiscent of the prawn sandwich, and then he’s thinking about Edinburgh again and feeling about as low as he can remember and Pete’s taking pity on him and dragging him into the nearest pub to get biblically pissed. 

He wakes the next morning with a hangover that’s probably milder than he deserves, and he’s barely dragged himself out of bed when there’s a frantic knocking at the front door. His flatmates are out - Marlene and Benji both having normal jobs that facilitate normal hours - so he hurriedly tugs an old jumper on over his pyjamas and blearily makes his way down the hall, squinting against the sunlight filtering in through their dusty windows and making his head pound.

“Yeah, alright,” he mutters as the harried knocking continues. “Chill out.”

He yawns as he flicks across the security lock and tugs the door open, and his heart lurches.

“Sirius.”

He’s standing there, alone in the corridor, one hand twisting anxiously with the fingers of the other as Remus stares at him, dumbstruck. He looks awful, even worse than Remus feels; exhausted, worn out, and a little mad round the eyes as he stares back across the threshold with an expression Remus doesn't recognise on him.

“Hi,” Sirius says breathlessly, attempting a smile that looks strange and unnatural. If Remus didn’t know better he’d say he was on something, but Sirius doesn’t do that, and Remus isn’t sure whether the absence of that as an explanation is a relief or a concern. He thinks he should be running into Sirius’s arms, or something; kissing passionately out on the landing as Sirius explains away his radio silence with something that makes complete and instant sense and then they’d laugh and make up and fall into Remus’s unmade bed together. But he doesn’t, and they don’t, and Sirius just stares at him with that bizarre, feverish look on his face, glancing behind him into the flat. 

“Can I come in?” Sirius asks quietly. 

Remus blinks at him. “Where have you been?” he says, saddened to find an unwelcome hard edge to his voice. How entirely like Sirius to assume that he’s entitled to immediate grace and forgiveness from Remus, he thinks, and his quickness to revert to judging Sirius in that way makes him feel even worse. 

“I didn’t go to Paris.”

“I can see that," says Remus slowly. "How did you find me?”

“Pete.”

Remus nods, laughing humourlessly. “Pete. Of course."

Sirius looks pained, then, his hands still wringing together as he shivers and Remus isn't sure whether it's the chill in the building, or nerves, or what. “Please, Remus," he begs. "Can I just... can I come in?”

Remus studies him for a long moment. He really does look terrible; so far from his usual pristine self. His hair is scraped back in a band at the nape of his neck, loose strands curling around his face, which is drawn and tired, like he hasn’t slept properly since Remus last saw him. He’s wearing his regular uniform of chinos and shirt, but they’re creased, as if he's been wearing them for a few days, and on top of that a loose, ill-fitting jacket that Remus is pretty sure doesn’t belong to him. And suddenly his annoyance is pushed aside by a renewed, aching concern, because something is so far from normal here. 

“Yeah, come in,” he says quietly as he steps aside to let Sirius past, and then he’s pushing the door shut and following Sirius down the hall out into the sitting room. Even in his fraught state, Sirius still seems hilariously out of place in the tiny flat; an Adonis in a pokey old store cupboard, a priceless painting hung in a corner shop. 

“I’ve left.”

Remus blinks at him. “What?”

“I’ve left,” says Sirius, and there’s the hint of a manic smile pulling at his features as he shrugs at Remus and shakes his head. “Left my flat, left my parents. Told them I’m not doing any of it anymore. Left the law programme. Just left.”

“Jesus, Sirius...”

“I’m going to go up to Inverness, to James’s place there. There’s a lot of work to be done there, so.” He sounds slightly breathless as he claps his hands together, grinning at Remus. “That’s where I’m going to go.”

Remus’s heart breaks for him. This should feel like the best news in the world; it's what Sirius wants, what Remus knows he needs - freedom and escape and something for himself that's going to sustain him and give him a place and a purpose away from the odious world his parents have always tethered him to. But he’s so obviously not okay; he’s practically shaking, his movements strange and staccato as he runs a hand absently through his unwashed hair, and all feelings of betrayal and abandonment disappear entirely as Remus steps towards him, carefully taking hold of his wrist, offering the slightest contact without spooking him. He feels Sirius’s pulse thrumming under his touch. It’s racing. 

“Okay,” he says gently, nodding and trying for a small, reassuring smile. “Okay, that’s good. That’s going to be really good, Sirius.”

Sirius beams at him. “Yeah, it’s good. It’s going to be perfect.”

“Okay,” Remus says again, carefully ushering Sirius over to the threadbare old sofa against the far wall. “Why don’t you sit down? And I’ll go make us some tea, yeah?”

Sirius nods and takes a seat, still practically vibrating with adrenaline, and Remus offers him another tight smile before crossing the hall to their tiny kitchen, flicking the kettle on and letting out a deep, steadying breath as he braces himself against the counter and closes his eyes. 

“I’ve been with James,” says Sirius from the doorway, and Remus looks up to find that he’s followed him to the kitchen. “He knew I was going to do it this week, so he said I should go stay with him for a few days whilst my parents calmed down. So that’s where I was last night. But then I told him that I needed to come here, obviously, because... because I needed to talk to you, and I'm sorry that I haven't been in touch since Edinburgh and I really didn't mean to shut you out, Remus, but it's just been a little full-on with my parents since I got back and I thought it was best to just get it sorted, you know? Just get it sorted and then I'd come talk to you about it."

He's rambling something chronic, almost breathless as he goes on, still fidgeting with his hands; the nervous energy radiates off him in waves despite the fact that he looks dead on his feet. It's heartbreaking.

“Sirius,” Remus says, looking at him sadly from across the room. “When did you last sleep, love?”

Sirius waves him off airily. "Last night, a bit," he says, and Remus doesn't believe him, but offers him a vague nod anyway before turning back to their mugs as the kettle clicks off.

“Come with me.”

Remus freezes, his hand stilling over the pot of sugar. 

“What?”

“Come with me, to Inverness,” Sirius shrugs, grinning at Remus from the doorway. “It’ll be perfect, like we said.”

“Sirius...”

“Please, Remus,” he says, and Remus watches as the fraught exterior becomes something altogether more desperate, less certain, the smile slipping away as Sirius chews on his bottom lip. “Please come with me.”

How easy it would be to acquiesce. How perfect it would be, Remus thinks, to drop everything right now and head north with Sirius and a clean slate for a new life together. It’s what he wants, and no part of him doubts that that’s where he’s ultimately supposed to be. But something about the way Sirius is pleading with him now isn’t _right_ ; it shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t be an act of desperation, a wild impulse that the both of them embark upon because Sirius’s parents are suddenly out of the equation and Sirius is looking at him with those wide, beseeching eyes, still so obviously high on the events of the past few days and whatever’s happened between him and his family. It’s too fast, too harried and forced, and Remus can see, now, a year and five years and twenty years into a future where the notion of freedom and the ideal of the two of them together have bound intrinsically to one another in Sirius’s mind, neither of them ever really knowing if he left for himself or if he left for Remus. It’s messy, and precarious, and feels altogether wrong. Remus can’t bear the thought of Sirius shedding one life of obligation only to migrate to another, his fresh start already clouded with the need to make it perfect not just for himself, but for both of them; to make it eternal, lest the whole thing come crashing down and Sirius lose everything all over again. 

He thinks, distantly, as he crosses the room to carefully take Sirius in his arms, that it’s the hardest decision he’s ever had to make. 

“I can’t,” he says softly against Sirius’s ear, and he feels him stiffen in his hold. “No, just listen,” he continues, holding him firmly and refusing to let him pull away. “It’s not a no. It’s just a not yet. You need to do this for yourself first, Sirius.”

“I can’t do it alone,” Sirius whispers, cutting him off, and his voice is so fragile that Remus can feel his resolve threatening to crumble. _I'll come with you then,_ his mind offers, traitorous and tempting. _I'll do it with you._

“Yes you can,” he says instead, pressing a firm kiss to the side of Sirius’s head. “You already told me exactly what you need to do. You’re going to go up there and you’re going to build, and you’re going to plan, and you’re going to make something for yourself. If anyone can do it, it’s you. And you won’t _be_ alone; you’ll have James, and his parents, and I’m sure they’ll be up there with you to help you get started. And I’ll be here the whole time.”

Sirius doesn’t move for a long moment. Remus holds him, running calming circles into the loose hair at the nape of his neck, and then at length Sirius is sniffing into Remus's shoulder, fingers curling loosely into the fabric of his jumper as Remus feels him finally, mercifully begin to relax in his arms. The adrenaline seems to fade out, seeping away and stilling the manic, feverish energy thrumming through him as he tucks his face into the crook of Remus’s neck, matching him breath for breath. 

“I’ll be right here,” he presses on, drawing Sirius even closer to him, “and you can ring me every day and you’ll see me every time you come down to London, and then when you’re ready, and you’re settled, and you’re happy... I’ll come.”

“Will you?” Sirius asks quietly, hopefully. 

“Of course I will,” says Remus, pouring every ounce of assurance and conviction that he has into his words. And then, with absolute, unyielding certainty: “I love you.”

It’s been true for a while now. Since Somerset House, at least. Maybe even before that; maybe since Statten in the summer, when Sirius had swallowed him down and kissed him and fallen asleep in his arms in the four-poster bed and the sticky, July heat. It feels, now, like such an integral part of what Remus is; something constant, deep in his core, without which the rest of him couldn't have been forged. He thinks back to his first summer in London, and his first time meeting Sirius, and how he loathed him and thought him the worst sort of person and yet, each summer after, counted down the days until he could see him again and he wonders, distantly, if a part of him didn't love him from the very beginning. 

There's a long moment, and then Sirius is pulling back with a watery smile and something that might be a laugh, wiping roughly at his nose as he nods his head in understanding.

“I love you too,” he says softly, and Remus thanks whatever creator might be watching over the two of them that Sirius can see it as well. That his fresh start needs to be just that, for now, and that rather than bruise and ruin them the miles between them can instead lend them the space and the time in which to build immovable bones for whatever comes next. It’s a paradox: this seems old already, something perpetual and enduring that’s as much a part of them as Remus’s freckles or Sirius’s hidden tenderness behind its mask of nonchalance, and Remus has to remind himself that it’s a path they’ve only really just turned down; an untrodden design laid out and waiting, too precious to rush foolhardy into and burn through indifferently, taking what they can get before stumbling to an inevitable, insignificant end. 

It’s the exact inverse of what he’s done every time before, and that, precisely, is how Remus knows it’s right. 

"Go do what you need to do," he whispers, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against Sirius's as he holds him in the middle of the tiny, sunlit kitchen. "Figure it out. I'll be here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies. They will get their happy ending, eventually - they're just not quite there yet.
> 
> Third and final part of this series is currently being written and should be up at some point in the not-too-distant future. Thank you so much for reading! x


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